Author of Curtis Black novels signs new book at Wolfchase

Kimberla Lawson Roby, author of the Reverend Curtis Black series of novels, will hold a reading and booksigning Friday at Barnes & Noble in Wolfchase Galleria for the latest installment in her Black family saga, “The Prodigal Son” (Grand Central, $26).

Roby’s fictional patriarch is a man of the cloth who is “unfortunately consumed with money, power and women,” as Roby describes him. He’s a composite character: “Curtis Black is a mixture of many, many men I have known over the years.”

The new book, the 11th in the series, focuses on the problems of the minister’s son Matthew, who has droppped out of Harvard to take care of his infant son.

Rev. Black’s flaws reflect real-life problems many of her readers recognize, the author says. But Roby, who lives in Rockford, Illinois, says the pastor of her own church appreciates her fiction. “He has so much integrity, and loyalty for his wife, family, God and the church. That kind of a pastor, they don’t have a problem with what I write.”